Zapp! English Listening 3.29: Advertising We Remember

Katie can still sing every word of a carpet freshener advert from the 1980s: "You do the Shake and Vac and put the freshness back". She admits she has no idea whether it worked, only that it was memorable. That's the starting point for this episode — five people trying to describe adverts they can't get out of their heads, and then working out whether that's clever, harmless, or slightly worrying. The conversations were recorded outdoors, so you'll hear natural background sound throughout.

What you'll hear in this episode

Cathy describes the Got Milk magazine campaign in the United States — full pages of famous people with a milk moustache and a short blurb explaining why they drank it. Donnie describes a series of Scottish television and billboard adverts for Irn Bru, including a version of The Snowman in which the snowman steals the boy's can and the two have a fight in the air over Glasgow. He notes that Irn Bru outsells Coca Cola in Scotland and wonders aloud whether that's connected to the country's teeth, before shrugging: "that's the power of advertising I suppose".

Alec remembers a 90s Tango advert featuring a large man painted orange who slapped people round the face — and the copycat slapping in his school that got it banned. Then Katie and Tom reconstruct two more from memory: the Levi's laundrette advert with Nick Kamen and Marvin Gaye on the soundtrack, where, as Tom puts it, the watching women "almost combust"; and the Hamlet cigar advert in the photo booth, where they can't quite agree whether the man has a comb-over or a toupee.

The last two sections are a discussion. Donnie argues that adverts "sell you a lifestyle and they sell you an image"; Cathy says the most upsetting thing is catching herself singing a jingle she didn't know she knew. There's fake sportswear ("Badidas"), Formula One sponsorship, and a comparison of how long the ad breaks are in Spain and the United States.

Quick facts

Episode	3.29
Pack	Listening 3
Level	3
Duration	18 minutes 37 seconds
Speakers heard	Katie, Tom, Cathy, Donnie, Alec
Topic	Advertising and adverts people remember
Workbook	Included in the €39 all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

The workbook sets five listening tasks, alternating between gist and detail. Some questions are deliberately simple — where were the adverts found, magazine or television? — and some test whether you noticed an absence: Alec never actually says what kind of product Tango is. Task 4 asks whether anyone says anything positive about advertising, and the answer is a flat no.

The real language lesson here is how people describe something visual they only half remember. Katie doesn't just say the Hamlet advert existed; she reproduces the music as "de de dum, de de dum", describes the hair combed "from say his left ear" over the bald patch, and hands Tom the ending. Tom fills in gaps, corrects her, and finishes her sentences: "Gives up!" You'll hear genuine word-searching too — Katie asks "what do you call it, the fast car things?" and Donnie supplies Formula One; a moment later the pair of them hunt for strapline and settle on motto. This is what fluent speakers actually do when the word won't come, and copying the strategy is more useful than pretending it never happens.

Vocabulary from the workbook

The glossary covers fourteen terms from the conversations, including:

wacky (adjective) – funny in a strange, silly or unusual way; used of the Irn Bru humour
jingle (noun) – a short musical tune used in advertising; the Shake and Vac song
laundrette (noun) – a shop where you pay to use their washing machines; the setting of the Levi's advert
combust (verb) – begin to burn, burn easily; Tom's description of the women watching
toupee (noun) – false hair that you wear on your head, argued over in Task 3
nappy (noun) – the thing babies wear when they haven't learnt how to use the toilet, worn by the orange man in the Tango advert
pervasiveness (noun) – being found everywhere, something you cannot avoid
generic (adjective) – not a brand name, as in the fake three-stripe trainers
motto (noun) – a saying that shows what you are about / your opinions / beliefs

What's in the workbook

The workbook for this unit contains the five listening tasks with their answers, the full transcript of every conversation, and an Extra Materials section with nine more comprehension questions — who sang the song in the Levi's advert, whether the man in the Hamlet advert gets the photo he wants, which country shows ads more often. There's also a Getting the meaning from context exercise built on five real lines from the recording, where you match expressions to definitions: to strip off, to stick in your mind, springs to mind, blurb and bald. The vocabulary glossary sits at the end.

This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which covers every episode across all our courses for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — that's why you get false starts, laughter and people talking over each other. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Do I need to know the adverts being described?

No. The speakers describe them in enough detail that you can follow without ever having seen them, and that description work is exactly what you're listening for.

Is the background noise a problem?

These conversations were recorded outdoors, so there's natural background sound. It makes the listening harder and more realistic; the transcript is there if a line escapes you.

What level is this episode?

Level 3, from our Listening 3 pack. It runs 18 minutes 37 seconds including the tasks and answers.

How do I get the workbook?

It comes with the all-in-one pack at €39, along with the workbooks for every other episode.

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